I’m developing a math app which uses openGL to plot 3d graphics. It must plot very high res meshes.
However, I can’t imagine any way to guess memory limitations on the machine the app is going to execute on. So, while it works great for a certain res mesh, it simply hangs the app when I add mor detail.
The app doesn’t use textures, and makes all the drawing in a display list which is showed once calculated.
My idea is, knowing the final mesh resolution (I draw the mesh using quadrangles), warn the user if the machine is not going to be able to manage it properly.
Any info will be really appreciated. Much thanks in advance!
Gigantic display lists are not recommended. You should split your mesh in several smaller display lists.
The overhead of additional display list calls is likely to be negligible compared to the actual time spent rendering the mesh. With smaller display lists, the driver has more possibilities to optimize resource allocation.
You should also try to use a LOD or HSR technique, because even recent machines have limits. You can’t just push tens of millions triangles per frame and expect good performance.